


ain't no grave gonna hold my body down

by azurill



Series: long is the road that leads me home [2]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Family Fluff, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25619686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurill/pseuds/azurill
Summary: Five months after she left for Santa Barbara, Ellie makes her way back home.The relentless healing process begins.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Series: long is the road that leads me home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824790
Comments: 69
Kudos: 255





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”
> 
> — Psalm 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> couldn't take this story out of my mind n i can only hope to translate it properly into words. hope u enjoy this!

To put it mildly, California sucks. Clickers seem more active there than in the temperate Jackson weather. They're agitated, noisy, walking in some of the biggest hordes she's ever seen in her entire life. It's how she ends up in a pitch black basement, hiding and waiting for one to pass by.

Ellie manages to sleep despite the sound of clickers dragging themselves around on he floor above her. She wakes up exhausted, unsure if it's day or night and if hours or an entire day had passed. Her flashlight won't last long if she keeps it on the entire time, so she stays in the dark with her knees up to her chest and gun in hand, rocking back and forth, her entire world limited to a basement and her own thoughts. 

She thinks about the farmhouse, calm and welcoming and _home_. Ellie wonders how much bigger JJ has grown on the time she was away — did he outgrow the onesie she got him two months before she left? Did he still wake up at night, tugging on Dina's shirt until she fed him? 

(Did Dina stay in the farmhouse? No, that would be too much to ask. Ellie left her crying, on her own, in the middle of nowhere.)

There's a bang on the floor above her.

Ellie imagines JJ between her and Dina in their bed, his small little hand wrapped around her thumb as the three of them laid cocooned under a blanket. That was the easiest way to calm him down in nights where he was feeling particularly fussy. Dina would hum a few songs and he'd go right back to sleep. Some other times Ellie had tire him out and the sound of his laughter made her feel years younger. 

A gunshot. Whoever's up there, they're fighting like hell to survive.

Staying is the only thing Dina ever asked of her. Not fixing herself, not magically getting rid of her nightmares and panic attacks, not being the old Ellie she spent her teenage years with like nothing ever happened. Dina didn't even ask for her to put an end to the unprompted hunting trips that left her worried sick and awake late at night until the moment she saw Ellie passing through the door of their home.

God, she has no right to miss her, but she does.

She misses JJ. 

_We have a family_ , Dina reminded her, and even that wasn't enough to convince her to stay. Ellie feels a familiar feeling of shame and regret overflowing her body and she takes a deep, deep breath that she slowly lets out through her mouth. For a second she debates going back home and apologizing to Dina and just live. She'll walk on her knees if that means she'll take her back. 

Joel's jacket is big enough for her to slip her nose under its collar and Ellie notices with a devastating sadness that it doesn't smell like him anymore. It takes one flash of his face — the scent of his cologne, the taste of iron flooding her mouth — for her to remember why she left. 

__

Dina stayed with her the first night after Joel... after Joel. She doesn't remember how she got to Jackson or when they found her or what they did to bring her back from the dissociative state she was in. She remembers struggling against Jesse's arms, screaming at Joel to get up, screaming at Dina who stood idly nothing to help her father. The denial at his death still lingered and did not settle even after they placed him six feet under the ground. 

The funeral happened the morning after his death. Dina helped her dress, held her shaking hands steady the entire time, stayed with her when everyone else had left and the sun shone orange. Dina agreed to go back home that day because Ellie asked her to, and only after telling her that she could knock on her door at four in the morning if she needed her, that she'd be there to talk or just exist in the same space.

Dina deals with grief in a way Ellie might never learn to and she made things better, but the positive impact she brought barely scratched the surface of all the pain Ellie holds close to her chest.

He would've wanted her to stay safe in Jackson. If not that, he would've wanted her to stay with the little family she formed after she got back from Seattle. Ellie knows that much. Joel never went after the soldier that killed Sarah, never killed with anger, not in the way she does.

The thing is Ellie's not him — she's not him and that's why her hands still shake after she tortures someone for information and why she's going through hell and back to find his killer. There's no easy fix to whatever happened to her brain after everything she witnessed, but maybe if she does him justice something will come out of all this. Even if that something turns out to change her for the better, Ellie's sure some part of her is dead and buried with Joel, never to be seen again. 

__

_Dina drifted off to a well deserved sleep an hour ago, and it's just her and a newborn baby she was terrified to hold at first. Ellie sits on the chair next to their bed, softly rocking the baby in her arms when he wakes up with little whines and a disgruntled expression on his face._

_"Shh, it's okay," Ellie comforts him, the tone of her voice foreign even to her own ears. "You're okay. You're good." She touches his small hand gently and feels tears welling up in her eyes when JJ looks up at her, wrapping his hand around her thumb. "See? All good."_

_She never thought of herself as the maternal type. Even when Dina was so big the baby was obviously gonna pop out any day, some part of her was still in denial that this was really happening. Ellie thinks back on the letter her mom wrote her. Just like Anna, she wasn't a big fan of babies — and luckily, just like her, Ellie's completely awestruck as she looks at her child, ready to give her life to this little person that's just a few days old._

_She understands her mother in a way she never could before and feels closer to the Joel she never met, the one that became a parent at a young age._

__

There's dirt under her nails and she smells strongly of earth and the flowers she picked. It was raining when she buried some kids not too far from where she found them. 

"This is so fucked up," Ellie talks to no one in particular, still horrified by the scene she stumbled upon as she continues on her search for Abby. She thinks of JJ, who could very well grow into one of these kids that laid dead below the ground. 

People did this. Not clickers. She thought she saw the worst humanity had to offer in Seattle, but Santa Barbara is really a great contender for the most dreadful place she ever stepped into. It seems like the more places she explores, the worse it gets and the better Jackson seems in comparison. 

It's clear no vaccine could've brought the old world back. 

__

_Dina kneels in front of her on the dirt, cupping her cheeks, telling her to breathe. She's heavy with child. Ellie should be taking care of her, not the other way around._

__

Ellie makes it to the coast and she misses Dina more than usual. Everywhere she goes is a remind of home, of her, of their first day in Seattle so different from her first day out there on her own. Back then there'd be long periods of time where she almost forgot what they were there for, entangled in their conversations and the lightness her girlfriend brought. They'd sit together at night, warmed by a campfire or body heat and Ellie clutched her close through the night. 

Selfishly and with no small amount of guilt, she thinks about how this would be much easier if Dina was here. She feels terribly lonely without her around, with her little quips about everything and anything around them. She even misses the things that used to bother her, like the way Dina would shove food on her hands and wouldn't leave until she had eaten at least some of it, and how she'd casually mention Joel like it was easy for Ellie to hear his name. 

She'd love this place — the ocean open and wide in front of them, the feeling of sand underneath her feet, the boats still filled with trinkets she wouldn't take, but would take a good look at. She'd laugh for no reason at all. The thought of of it brings a smile to Ellie's face, a smile that falls as quick as it appeared. Ellie's been in pain for so long that any small feeling of joy feels strange, like it's happening to someone else.

The panic attacks haven't lessened since she left. She braves through them alone, and hopes one won't come when she's out there with a gun pointed at her face.

It's better this way. JJ doesn't risk losing two of his remaining parents. That, and if she dies, then at least Dina won't be around to watch.

__

Between one place and another, Ellie draws. She transforms the memory of Dina on the bonfire into ink, each strand of her dark hair, all the freckles she could remember. She draws JJ and puts immense detail into his gummy smile. She draws him a lot, really. Thinking of Dina brings a lot of pain sometimes, their argument circling her thoughts, but the memory of their son remains untainted.

One time, she almost draws Joel with his kind eyes staring straight at her.

Almost. 

__

Ellie wouldn't know what to do with herself if she came all this way and lost her family only to end up never finding Abby. She does find her a few weeks later — the woman that lived in her nightmares looks small, nothing like the menacing figure she conjured in her mind. She's defeated, severely malnourished and with a kid that very much depends on her to keep living. 

In the end, despite everything, Ellie lets her go. It's only choice Ellie's done in a while that felt right and stayed that way. The boat doesn't take her very far, but it put her at a safe distance from the Rattlers. The adrenaline rush was so strong she barely noticed how much her fingers hurt until she got to the shore and later on, she comes to terms with the fact they have to go. 

It's not pretty.

Ellie holes up in some house outside Santa Barbara while a summer rainstorm rages outside. Her fingers are a little clumsy when she draws Joel on his porch. She wants to remember him like that. Like the father he was, gently playing a song, wishing that'd bring her out of her little home and close to him.

__

When Ellie catches sight of the farm, she's barely any food or water in days. Dina left no notes. She wasn't expecting one. As far as Ellie checked her own things are still there — she could make a living in that empty home if she wanted to, if she were able to stand the sight of everything she left behind. She quickly found out she couldn't.

Jackson is about an hour walk from the farm and the distance between both places was no challenge, but Ellie spent more time in the woods than she accounted for — because of the doubts clouding her mind, because some guy got close enough to take a good swing at her side and walking became too difficult, partly because of the injury, partly because she's way too damn weak to hunt a rabbit and be nourished for once.

Ellie wanders the familiar path leaning heavily on one leg, barely aware of where her feet are taking her. Some time later, she inevitably crashes to the dirt. She slips in and out of consciousness, swimming in a delirious state so strong she barely feels any pain anymore. 

"—told— bring kids to—"

Ellie's tired.

So tired.

"Mom—" Rushed. Anxious. "—hurt—"

Someone removes her hand that's weakly pressing on her side and replaces it with a sort of gentleness she hasn't felt in months. 

"Joel?" Ellie rasps out.

"No, baby," A female voice. She tries to concentrate on its soft cadence. "Just a friend."

For a while, Ellie welcomes the nothingness that envelopes her. And then her surroundings become louder, agitated, and she becomes achingly aware of her situation. The possibility of death was so easy to face in Santa Barbara. Not so much now that she wants to come back to Dina, to her son. Ellie moves her arms, pushing against the hands holding her down. Screaming, kicking, bucking her legs. It can't end like this. It can't be for nothing. 

A familiar voice cuts through all the noise, calmly speaking, begging for her to listen. Her eyes focus on Dina — it's her, it's really her, she knows that because none of her short-lived dreams felt this real — and she has so much to say. Her hands grip her forearm and she uselessly tries to communicate that she's back and she missed her so much and she's so so so sorry for everything she did and that she didn't kill Abby, she didn't lose herself, she wants to be forgiven—

Some part of her that desperately wants to live fights against the nothingness that threatens to overtake her once more, but it's no use.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter gave me SO much work for various reasons but i'm super proud of myself for finishing it. i can't wait to get to the good, fluff stuff, but hey, i'll get there eventually.
> 
> i hope you enjoy it!

"He grew a lot since you left. Said his first word and all."

Dina knew the moment she laid her eyes on Ellie — her best friend of years, her girlfriend, her _family_ — that she couldn't stay away from her even if she tried. Ellie probably won't remember the way she clung to Dina. Dina, on the other hand, stayed awake through the night, haunted by the ghost of her touch. Her mind was simultaneously her own and another's, conflicting feelings and thoughts crashing into each other until sunlight peeked shyly through the curtains of her bedroom window.

"He called me Mama."

That morning, she took turns between feeding JJ and feeding herself breakfast. She dropped him of at Robin's, and they did not touch the subject of Ellie. Her plan of following her usual routine was going smoothly. She was well on the path to the watch tower for a morning shift, wearing a linen white shirt fit for the early autumn weather, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail that kept it from getting in the way. 

The more she approached her destination, the slower her footsteps became. Astrid was annoyed at her lateness and even more annoyed when Dina threw a feeble excuse at her so she could leave ten minutes after she had arrived. Before she knew it, she's ended up here, sitting on the white wooden chair beside Ellie's bed at the clinic and talking to her unconscious form.

"I wonder if he'd call you mama too, if you had stuck around."

The first thing Dina noticed about Ellie is that she looks clean — there's no dirt or blood in her face. The sheets cling loosely to the shape of her body and keeps her worst injuries away from sight. Her head is slightly tilted to the side and she looks as frail as she looks peaceful, her position exposing a tiny cut on her jaw that's definitely leaving a scar behind. Over the course of five minutes, Dina notices the presence of little scars in places where she had only ever seen unmarked freckled skin. 

"No one thought you'd come back. And honestly? I thought you'd die trying to finish what you set out to do before you ever considered coming back."

Ellie's cheeks are slightly sunken in, like she hasn't seen a good meal in a long time, which is probably true. Her hair carries the faintest hint of a lavender scent. It's grown a little longer. Out of habit, Dina wants to run her hands through the dark auburn strands. Kiss the scar on her eyebrow. Soothe her, make it better. 

Ellie wouldn't come back if she wanted to be out there in her own and that both exhilarates and terrifies Dina. _Touch her_ turns into _You should be angry_. _Forgive her_ turns into _She left you_. Back and forth and back and forth.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," Dina throws her head back. "I'm so fucking stupid."

___

_Nothingness._

_Conversations heard as if from underwater._

_Joel poking fun at her gangly limbs._

_Bright lights, twitching eyelids._

_Is she dying? Is she going to the same place he is? Is there a such a place at all?_

_Joel, his watch on her hands, his body covered by a white sheet. Joel, lying in an empty room on the church they had their last argument, bleeding. Joel and Riley and Jesse and the hundred ways she could've stopped them from dying, but didn't._

___

Tommy's hands press down her closed fists and Ellie screams, moving against his grip. Her eyes opened out of her own volition the second she was violently flung out a nightmare — they're glassy, so distant from the reality she's in. Low whimpers tear out of her throat one by one, limbs rubbing incessantly on the bed as she flails and tries to twist away from him. She's going to get herself hurt if the situation isn't controlled. It's all he could do.

"Please stop," Ellie closes her eyes tight, breaking into tears. "Stop! Leave him alone!"

He doesn't need to ask for help — it arrived sooner than he could even think about it. Ellie calms down eventually, and Tommy leaves with an immense regret over ever showing her that map.

___

The next time Ellie wakes up, she's more or less aware. She doesn't remember much of the events that led her here, to this hospital bed, to Jackson. Not even of the time she allegedly spent here. The memories are blurry and mismatched at best — a hand on her side, the noise of horse hooves galloping against the dirt road, disembodied voices, a brush of lips against her forehead. Ellie spends hours looking at the white ceiling, unmoving, and none of her thoughts make a lot of sense. 

She has company most of the time. 

Maria never stays for more than half an hour, but through the day she checks on Ellie at least four times, and there's a slot on her busy daily schedule that's entirely reserved for her. She doesn't see Tommy much. Maybe it's got something to do with the very quiet fight she overhead earlier that morning, where Maria told him to stay away. Ellie feels terrible for being thankful — she doesn't think she could deal with him so soon. 

Cat visits, too. Cat is easy to handle. She doesn't know about anything that happened in Seattle. She has no questions to ask, no demands to make. With Cat it's all familiar banter, old jokes, the tilt of her smile that reminds Ellie of simpler times where she was younger and unaware of the chain of events that would happen years later. It's from Cat that she learned when and how they found her. 

"Well, I wasn't _there_ ," she said. "My mom was, though. Said you looked like an infected from afar. You were... in a very rough shape, Ellie. You still are. But at least you aren't, you know, making a blood trail on the floor and shit."

The day passes. The more aware she becomes, the more she realizes that everything hurts. Her body aches all over, protesting against every slight movement, every rise of her chest when she breathes in, out, in, out. 

Dina doesn't visit.

___

The first attempt at getting into a sitting position fails. Ellie lies back down and stays still for a while, her stomach churning, shame growing. She can make out the sound of people moving around and chatting, but thankfully she wasn't loud enough to bring attention to herself.

It's her fourth and last day in Jackson's infirmary. She's on a bed with sheets that smells of fresh laundry, in a small cubicle separated from another by a pale blue curtain, and barely anything changed since the day she woke up. To her left, there's a bedside table where some of her belongings were carefully placed along with a few _Get Well Soon_ cards and a plate with some toast and cheese. To her right, there's an unoccupied chair.

She hates being stuck in bed. She hates that she needs help to move around, that she takes too much of people's time, uses up resources that weren't meant for her. Ellie wants — needs — to get out of here.

She makes a second attempt at getting somewhere that's not the bed by herself, and this time it's successful. Ellie manages to stand on her feet by supporting herself on the bed, then on the table. As the dizziness gets worse with every step she takes, Ellie wants more than ever to crawl back into bed. She pushes the urge down, convinced that she can show them that they don't have to keep her around anymore.

Her feet don't take her very far. In fact, she barely moved away from her initial spot. Dark spots begin to appear in her vision and it becomes increasingly hard to keep her legs from crumbling under her weight. Firm hands guide her to bed, an equally firm voice reaching her ears — Ellie doesn't need to turn around to know it's Maria. 

Ellie leans her head back on the pillow, breathing heavily through her mouth until the world stops spinning and she finds herself able to focus again. Maria's disapproval goes unsaid. Ellie would care more if her head wasn't pounding, really.

"Beth told me you won't eat."

Of course the first thing Maria would do is to scold her like a child for not eating properly. She groans, frustrated with this entire situation. "Give me a minute. I feel sick."

Maria pushes the breakfast plate into her hands. "No wonder you feel sick when you won't eat."

Ellie rolls her eyes and extends an arm to grab a piece of toast. "Happy now?"

"I'll be when you finish that plate. You need help to sit?"

"No, I got this."

Maria sits on the previously empty chair, skimming rapidly through a log book and answering the radio every five minutes or so, and Ellie takes small bites of her breakfast and spends ages trying to swallow it down. Her eyes skim over an specific card on the table, Dina's handwriting peeking out of the floral paper. 

**Take care.**   
**\- D**

"She told me to let her know when you woke up today."

A question hangs up in the air. Does Ellie want her to? She knows Dina visited her before, when she couldn't do much other than just breathing and existing and dreaming comfortably in her sleep, not like this, when she's fully aware of everything. But she has nowhere to run to and Jackson is more and more becoming a place she'll have to stay a while on. And if Dina wants to talk, well — it can't be that bad, can it?

"Okay," she tells Maria.

Maria moves on to more comfortable subjects when she isn't busy doing her job, and only leaves when Ellie's managed to eat at least half the food on her plate. 

-

_I'm back in Jackson. Cat said Esther and her team found me. ~~Maybe they should've le I don't des~~ Dina wants to talk to me. I can't stop shaking my leg. _

_The birds are really loud outside._

Ellie's eyes start to close out of her own volition as she thinks about what to write, the gentle rustling of the curtains and the quiet sounds of conversation lulling her into a lazy kind of sleep. She doesn't realize she's drifted off until she jostles awake from a gentle touch to her face and she opens her eyelids to look at Dina, her weight of hand familiar and comforting on her cheek. 

In a dream scenario, they'd look at each other, Dina would hold her tight and kiss the tears off her cheeks when Ellie made a thousand promises about never leaving her again. Instead, the hand that brushed her cheek returns to Dina's side, and there's an invisible barrier between them that was never there before. Ellie doesn't touch her back. Because she doesn't deserve it, because Dina had pulled away before the courage had built up.

They slip into silence and Ellie takes that time to _truly_ look at her. Dina is wearing her hair down — she's probably having a day off, going by her unpractical long skirt and her clean appearance. She sits on the foot of the bed, stares at the journal that's still open on her lap and quickly averts her eyes to some other place to avoid reading its contents. Nothing in the space they're in is interesting enough to hold her attention for that long, Ellie knows that. 

To anyone else, Dina looks completely unaffected by everything going on, but there's that certain look in her eyes that Ellie recognizes as her barely holding her thoughts in.

"Are you angry at me?" Ellie asks before she can stop herself, her voice the slightest raspy, still showing signs of disuse.

"Very." 

Dina looks at her, then, and Ellie feels self conscious about the way she looks for the first time in forever. She's aware of how much weight she lost since she left, and it's not like she was at a healthy weight in the farm either. And that's only part of it.

"I'm sorry."

"Do you know what you did to me when you walked out that door? To our son? He's lucky he won't remember any of it, but what about me?" 

She repeats very quietly, "I'm sorry. If you want to I can... find some other place to stay. I don't want to..."

"No," she cuts her off. "No. This is your home as much as it's mine." Dina pauses, staring down at the ground and considering which words she should choose until she settles on asking, "What happened out there?"

"I found her. The lead was true," Ellie says, watching her reaction closely. "I ran into some assholes out there, and these people... they were fucking crazy, Dina. Worse than all the shit we saw in Seattle. But they had seen her, her and the kid we saw that day." She goes on to tell her everything about Santa Barbara — how she found Abby, how she put her knife to the kid's throat and forced her to fight, how she choked her and was so close to putting an end to her life... only to let her go.

"This is a lot," _Confusion. Surprise._ "Did she do this?" Dina reaches a hand to touch her maimed fingers. Ellie tries to pull her hand back, ashamed that she let her notice at all, and Dina catches it before she can do so.

Ellie goes quiet.

Her touch, the kindness she affords her despite everything...

She doesn't deserve it.

She _wants_ to deserve it.

"—staying?"

Her eyes well up with tears.

"Hey."

Dina cups her cheeks, her thumbs wiping away the tears that made their way down Ellie's face. 

Ellie nearly sobs at that. 

"I'm—I'm sorry."

Dina gives her a heartbreaking smile. "I know." She looks into her eyes, and the tenderness and pain twirling together is something almost unbearable to witness. "Stay."

Ellie exhales softly. 

Sniffling, she nods. 

___

_They stayed in the theather for some time after the incident. Ellie had a broken arm. Tommy couldn't walk. Dina had woken up a few times, but struggled to remain awake. At first she had been worried the stress Dina went through was too much for the baby to bear, until Ellie woke up one morning to her girlfriend clutching a bucket close, her face tense, just waiting for the second she was gonna puke her guts out. Ellie had never been so happy to rub her back and aid her through her nausea._

_Jesse... Jesse was gone. Your fault, that nagging voice in the back of her head insisted, the same one that she heard when she thought about Riley, Sam, Henry, Tess... Joel._

_She doesn't know what made her mutter the strength to crawl to Dina's side, then to Tommy's. Ellie doesn't know what moved her to bury her best friend. She fiddles with the bracelet on her wrist, stained with mud, watching the woman she loves twitch in her sleep._

_Was it God?_

___

Esther's in her mid-forties. She's a tall woman, much taller than Ellie, and she never met anyone as soft-spoken or that knew as many puns as her. She visits sometime after she came back from patrol, comments on the way Ellie keeps tugging at the strands of hair that grew too long to her liking, and offers to cut her hair. Ellie takes the offer in a heartbeat, and after explaining the length she wants her hair to be, Esther gets to work.

They aren't close with each other by any means — by the time her relationship with Joel became a thing, Ellie was already avoiding him like hell. But Esther had always looked out for her, and for someone who seldom came off as serious, anyone could see she was damn serious about Ellie's safety. And she was funny for Ellie's standards, which probably aren't that high. Still.

"I heard a new pun," Esther starts conversation, a laugh already slipping out of her mouth. "I think you'll like it."

"Tell me," Ellie humors her.

"Okay, so, what’s the difference between a politician and a snail?"

"I don't know."

"One is slimy, a pest and leaves a trail everywhere," she explains. "And the other is a snail."

Ellie doesn't really get the joke — there's probably some old world information there that she glossed over completely during her school readings — but she smiles regardless, that simple kind of joy a little strange and so, so good.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter alert

Her new place is located at the edge of the town. Ellie isn't sure of who cleaned the entire place or went through the trouble putting everything together for her, but Esther certainly had a hand in it, having been the one to walk her there and asking question after question about what she thought about the house when it finally came into sight.

 _It's nice_ , she told her. And it really is nice, bigger than the one she used to live in, at a safe distance from the noisiest streets of Jackson and with a nice view to green pastures and orange sunsets. 

That aside, she couldn't help but be disappointed. Ellie was kind of hoping to return to her old place, but it's no wonder the entire town had moved on and a brand new family now occupied Joel's house and her shack beside it. 

Moving on is fucking hard. 

How the fuck did they do it?

There are few things in her new house that came from the farm, which in turn was filled with things that used to be in her shack. Other than her art supplies, some scattered clothes and a collection of her drawings, nothing is worth writing notes about.

(She isn't as excited about her massive comic books collection as she used to be.)

There are, of course, objects that came into her possession long before she ever stepped her feet into that new phase of her life — things like her mom's letter, Riley's firefly pendant, and more recently, Joel's watch and pistol.

Ellie could see herself in maybe a few years, all the things she hoarded from people that have long passed on growing into such a heavy pile she'll suffocate under it before she could ever move on.

___

_Maria said I should live with Dina. That it's not good for me to be alone. Is she crazy?_

___

Bored. Can't sleep.

[Doodle of a dinosaur on space, biting into a planet that looks suspiciously like Jupiter. It's wearing a space helmet.]

___

Adjusting to a regular life is more difficult than Ellie anticipated. There's this stillness to the air that contrasts Santa Barbara in a way that leaves her the slightest shaky with anxiety, as if the earth is just a second away from crumbling under her feet or some irrational shit like that. 

She battles against that strange energy, drawing and painting and chatting to whoever's visiting — usually Cat — to pass the time and keep her mind busy. It's rare that she gets to sleep at night, so Ellie finds herself dozing away at strange times of the day instead. 

The nightmares never stop. One night, though, she dreams of Joel and for once it's not bad. He's playing guitar on his porch, debating on whether he should cut his hair or not. 

Ellie wakes up crying anyway.

___

She comes up with a design for a new tattoo to cover the scarred skin of her hand. 

Cat approves.

___

_She keeps the farm a secret from Dina. Doesn't want to disappoint her in case it's in even a worse shape than she thinks it is, or if her plan of making it livable doesn't work. So for the time being, they pull their weight in the community they're surrounded by._

_Dina's nowhere as active as she used to be, and for the most part she takes cares of inventory or fixes electronics that need repair, perpetually stuck to a chair and a table much to her chagrin. Dina's belly grows bigger wih time. Mercifully, she grows less nauseous. Ellie stays away from patrols and puts all her mind and body into building fences and fixing water pipes, doing everything she can to stay out of trouble._

_When they aren't busy doing odd jobs in Jackson, they spend many afternoons like this — with Ellie's hand stretched on the swell of Dina's stomach, their bodies sprawled on the bed, music playing across the room from a record player they traded quite a valuable gun for. The music track changes and one minute in, Ellie feels the baby kicking against her hand._

_"Your music sucks, dude."_

_Ellie tries to come up with a smart remark and fails miserably, still in awe of what just happened._

_"She's moving so much today."_

_"She?"_

_"Fifty-fifty chance. Not that hard to guess."_

_"What if it's a boy?"_

_"Mm. Then we'll have to disown him."_

_Ellie's eyes widen a little and naturally, her girlfriend notices it, her convincing expression falling apart as a laugh escapes her mouth._

_"You're such a dick," she groans._

_"Babe, c'mon," Dina whines and tugs on Ellie's shirt before she can turn her back to her. "Not my fault you fell for it."_

_"Asshole."_

_Dina drops little kisses on Ellie's shoulder, moving to her collarbones and her neck, still kind of laughing_. 

"Hey."

_"I love you," one says, the other repeats back. It's not the first time they've said these words to each other, but it always feels a little like the first time—_

"Ellie!"

She's violently lurched back into reality with a call of her name, taking a few seconds to recognize where she is, when in the day is it, who she's with.

Jackson. Her house. 

Midday.

Dina, who's stopped rubbing some sort of icy hot gooey concoction on the stumps she has for fingers.

Ellie isn't convinced that it's doing something for the random burts of pain — it feels awkward when applied to her skin and provides nothing but a relief that soon fades. 

"I'm not hurting you, am I?"

Ellie shakes her head. "No. Sorry. I was... thinking."

"About what?"

"...Things."

She hums under her breath. It almost makes Ellie feel guilty, how Dina's so quick to realize that she doesn't really want to make conversation or elaborate on her thoughts, how she stays for as long as she can anyway, taking care of her. Ellie was holding up quite well before she made these visits, if holding up quite well means she wasn't taking care of herself and no one had done anything about it until she knocked over some shit and slept on the floor out of exhaustion. 

There's still so little she can do while her body heals up from months of hardship and Dina wants to help, Ellie knows that — she loves having her around even when she isn't saying a word, even if the balm she got from the clinic doesn't really help, because having Dina around is such a relief. 

It's familiar. It's normal and good and Ellie feels guilty for that, for not giving enough back when they were together and for not having anything to give now that they've sort-of-broken-up. Dina could do much better than this. Than her. Sometimes Ellie wants to shake her shoulders until she realizes that she doesn't owe her anything, that she can move on with her life and meet someone and not have to deal with all this mess.

After a few minutes pass, Ellie asks, "Why you here?"

Dina pauses what she's doing and meets her eyes. "You're my family," she answers with the kind of certainty that shows when someone says _two plus two is four_ and _the sky is blue_. 

"Let me help you," Dina quietly says, and her resistance falls.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be posted on joel's birthday but oh well

Jackson is the same as it always was. A patrol team had just left that morning, the market was buzzing with people from where she could see it from a distance, and Buckley still begged for pets when she walked by him. She ended up taking the longer path through town to avoid conversation entirely, all her social battery directed at one single goal: convincing Maria to assign her to some job, to anything that took her out of home and out there in sunnier, maybe slightly less moldy places. 

Ellie would rather be in the stables or tending to vegetable fields or milking cows rather than being out there on patrol, activities she's learned to appreciate on her time in the farm. She enjoyed the work a lot, not the process as much as the exercise that left her mellow at the end of the day and that made sleep come easier.

No one in Jackson had to work to eat or to have a livable house — they surprisingly had plenty of that as it was — but she felt bad about all the trouble she had caused and all the supplies wasted on her, and it didn't hurt that it provided a way for the nervous energy brewing inside her chest to be burned into nothingness.

"Have you talked to her about this?" Maria asks, reading glasses high up her nose, clearly talking about Ellie's.... it's hard to define what place Dina occupies in her life right now, really.

Nearly a month had passed since Ellie felt like she had physically recovered enough to put herself out there again. Of course this wasn't news to Dina, none of this was. She did have a talk with her about taking up some duties. It ended in an argument somehow.

Dina had protested that she took on work pretty much as soon as she could stand on her feet, and then Ellie somehow turned that into Dina thinking she needed to be taken care of at all times, which in turn caused Dina to point out her stubborness and how being infuriating used to be cute, but _now_...

"I take it didn't go well." Maria hums under her breath, browsing her logbook for an specific page and writing Ellie's name under the stables' morning shift. 

Ellie knows enough to not complain about how little work was given to her. It's amazing that she was given some at all. After a brief _thank you,_ Ellie is ready to leave.

"Take some food with you."

"I don't—" Maria already has her back turned to her, shoving a massive slice of a chicken pie inside a tupperware. Surprisingly enough, she manages to close the lid. "Okay. Thanks."

"Don't make me regret getting you back to work. That girl of yours can be a huge headache when she wants to."

"Yes ma'am," Ellie nods, setting out into the streets of Jackson again and following the same path home that she took before. The people here were never too friendly to her for starters. It can't be any better now, with Dina coming back to town with JJ and Ellie nowhere to be seen. She can't wait for something interest to happen in town so they can all move on to something else like they always do. 

—

Last time she had this pie, Jesse was over, they got high and they played video games until their eyes hurt from the brightness of the TV screen. The difference between _then_ and _now_ is as stark as night and day. She sets the tupperware on the table, unable to feel hungry at the moment, and engages in easy conversation with Cat.

"You look like a ghost."

Ellie hums, uninterested.

"Something happened?"

"Not really."

Cat shrugs. She's no better than Ellie at these kind of conversations. It's what ultimately caused them to break up, and her experience says it's better that she moves on before this situation can turn ugly. 

"So you want it here?" Cat says, hands hovering over the scarred skin on Ellie's left hand. "I'm gonna be honest with you. It's gonna hurt."

Ellie had hurriedly burned it with hot iron and, caught up in the pain and the pressing urgency of getting rid of such a recognizable scar, a considerable amount of surrounding skin got affected as well. Cat's had plenty of experience covering up numerous scars over the years. There's no one more fit to cover it. 

"It's not like this didn't hurt," Ellie raises her tattooed arm to make a point.

"We can take breaks. You just gotta tell me if it gets too much."

She doesn't. Ellie braves through it, gritting her teeth and finding comfort in the fact she won't have to look at that scar tomorrow. She doesn't even remember much from when she got that bite. She was barely herself at that point.

Dina comes in, the sound of her footsteps almost lost amidst the buzzing of the tattoo machine, immediately eyeing on the sight of them two together, close like this. She's never liked Cat. 

"You forgot this," she sets down a pile of "new" clothes Ellie was supposed to bring from Maria's but forgot to, and promptly leaves before Ellie can even thank her. 

Cat whistles. "Ice cold. Whatever you did, you fucked up, dude."

She can tell Cat wants to know more about this, and she's sure Cat's heard _plenty_ from the people in town. She lets the curiosity get the better of her, setting herself up for disgruntlement. "What do people say?"

"What?"

"About me and Dina."

"Just... you know. Stuff. Bad stuff. I hear some things from people coming over to get a tattoo. Don't get me wrong, Ellie, but I don't think it's gonna do you any good to hear about it. People are stupid."

When Ellie first visited Jackson, she thought it was the best place on Earth. And then she started living in there for real and she found out people who were too comfortable grew bored and frustrated and the old folks were, well, fucking bigots most of the time. She just wishes Dina's name wasn't in their tongues — everyone loved her, before Ellie, before _this_. Most still do, but it's inevitable that the perception people have of Dina is inherently linked to the perception they have of her. 

"Small price to pay for safety, I guess," Cat says.

—

After two weeks of work, she gets quite used to the routine given to her. It's not strenuous work, she has plenty of help and she has a lot of reasons to suspect there's someone pulling strings for her to be so free of heavy workload. The stables are, by far, her favorite place in Jackson. She doesn't need to talk to anyone, if at all, spending her entire morning feeding horses and brushing their manes and carrying water buckets.

(She gives special attention to Joel's horse, though she'll never admit it. Maybe she'll even take him on a ride sometime. Joel would like that.)

Ellie carries two heavy buckets of water in each hand, sweat forming on her forehead at the effort it takes her. Liam, a teenage guy who's taken to spending his time in the stables as well, looks at her with big brown eyes as she makes her way to the stable door, as if questioning if she could even make it halfway there.

"You could ask for help, lady. I'm right here."

Ellie spares him no glances and no words, angry red lines present on her palms from the iron handle of the bucket by the time she pours the water on the tray. She wipes the sweat off her face with her shirt, which contributes more to smearing dirt on her cheeks than anything else. 

It's late morning and there's still work. 

There's always work.

Dina arrives in the stables at one in the afternoon, exchanging greetings with the people she passes by until she gets to Ellie, who's currently in the process of catching her breath after pushing herself maybe too far. She's never sure of where she and Dina stand. Sometimes, when she comes by, they don't talk. Sometimes it's like this, a _hey_ spoken between them, the tiniest of smiles on their faces.

Dina hands her Japan's reins, a little touch of their fingertips lingering a second too long, and Ellie buries her hands inside the pockets of her dirty jeans. There's something there, like there was when they weren't together yet, but Ellie knows they both need time if this has to work. And they did have a fight neither of them apologized for until now. 

"Was patrol... okay?"

Dina seems surprised by her question, like she wasn't expecting Ellie to say anything at all.

"I wasn't really on patrol. Just helping people find their way around some routes. JJ gets antsy when I'm away for too long."

"Oh," Ellie's heart drops to her stomach at the mention of JJ. "Right. Makes sense."

The world isn't silent. On the contrary, it's loud and clear around them, with the sound of people and horses and found objects and supplies being passed around. But it feels quiet to Ellie. Small. Intimate. It's always like that around Dina.

"We—"

"Ellie—"

They speak at the same time and both look down, embarrassed. Dina's the first to speak again, brushing a curl away from her eyes and chewing on her bottom lip.

"Can we talk? I hate it when we're like this."

—

Ellie gathers the dirt in her hands, letting it seep through the space between her fingers before she repeats the process again. 

"Um..."

Joel's name etched into the headstone glares at her. Her lungs constricten. Her chest begins to burn.

"Shit."

Ellie breathes deep.

In, out.

In, out.

"Okay," she says, finally opening her eyes. She doesn't remember closing them. "Uh... do you mind if I don't talk about anything serious today? I know a lot has happened, but —" Ellie laughs out of nervousness. "Course you don't care, right? I mean, it's not like you can hear me or anything."

"Shit. Alright. I've been going to the stables a bit. It's great. I like the horses. Mostly yours, and Japan, but all of them are awesome. I felt like... you know, like I needed to do things again, and get out the house for a bit, or I'd melt into the bed and spend the rest of my life there. That would suck."

"Um... Dina told me to come over. We haven't been talking much. And when we talk it's fucking awkward most of the time. But she said I could see how JJ is doing and all that. It's very nice of her and... I miss him a lot. Really."

Deep breaths.

"Your birthday was last week. I didn't even notice it passed by."

In, out. Will there come a day where she won't need to calm herself like this anymore?

"If I knew you'd be gone I wouldn't have acted like a little shit to you on your birthday. I would've played guitar with you and you'd give me some whiskey, and tell me a cool Savage Starlight fact I already knew since I was twelve or something."

"Everyone wants me to get better and they're trying to help and I'm trying to help myself too but I feel like nothing works. I—" Her voice cracks. "I miss you, Joel. You'd know what to do. You always did."

Ellie walks home, teary-eyed and a little proud that she talked at all. She's unable to sleep that night, her mind jumping at all the possibilities of what her talk with Dina and the heaviness of this particular day settling deep in her bones. Instead, she draws. She draws until light begins to seep under the doorframe of the front door. 

Work that morning is swift and she breezes through it in a sort of detached way only sleep deprivation can provide.

—

It's been a while since she cared for her appearance — since she picked clothes especifically because they looked good, and because she knew Dina would like them. Her reflection in the mirror is thinner than it's ever been, short-haired, more scarred, still far too strange to look at _._ She grips the edge of the sink, thinking _don't fuck this up._

Before leaving home, Ellie picks up an odd book she found in a box with her other books — that were about astronomy and paleontology and not about world-shattering romances between women like this one — and soon enough she's at Dina's doorstep, her fingers sweating uncomfortably, jaw tense, telltale signs of nervousness that will surely be too obvious for the person that she spent so many years with and that is now staring back at her, bouncing a toddler on her arms.

"Come in," Dina says, shushing JJ as she walks into her house.

Ellie follows her into the living room, her mouth tasting like sandpaper. _Can't back out now_. She can't see any of JJ's features from where she is, only his black hair and his noticeably chubbier body as he clutches to his mom. She can definitely hear his tiny whining sounds.

Ellie stares a hole into them, still standing by the wall, feeling like an intruder and a stranger and not at all like the person that held JJ moments after he was born, that kissed Dina and promised her love. _Can't back out now_ , she reminds herself.

"What's that in your hands?"

"What?" Dina raises her chin at the book in her hands and, oh, alright. Ellie gets the hint now. "It's, um, for you. Romance stuff you like."

"Thanks, El," Dina gives her a small smile that fades slightly when JJ yanks at her hair. "I couldn't get him to sleep before you came. Sorry."

Dina's attention falls on Ellie for the first time that night and Ellie brings her arms closer to her body and, not knowing what to say or do, Ellie stiffly walks to the couch and sits on the seat farthest from Dina, both by choice and because there's a little pile of toys on the seat between them. 

"You seem tired."

_Really, Ellie? Is that all you can do?_

"It's what happens when you're expected to teach some grown ass people to not get killed out there _and_ you got a toddler home."

Dina sets said toddler down on the floor to avoid getting kicked on the ribs, and JJ looks curiously at Ellie, as if trying to make sense of this new person who's so close to him. It's clear he doesn't remember her anymore. He picks a toy from the pile and tentatively extends his little hand on her direction, offering it to her.

"This is... really cool, JJ," Ellie mumbles her approval, trying to contain the emotion _in_ not _out_ , and soon enough most of the toys that were previously in that pile were transferred into her lap one by one. 

"He's a handful," Dina says he moves to yet another pile of toys on the corner of the living room. "I think all the trouble I caused my mom came right back at me with this little guy."

Dina looks... well, like a mom. Her hair is pulled into a messy ponytail and it's still kind of wet — she probably had no time to dry it when her son is being fussy like this — and she's wearing a simple beige sweater over black leggings. Ellie knows better than to mistake her apparent softness for weakness.

Dina helps him climb back into the couch when he's satisfied with the toy hoarding and speaks softly to him and Ellie's heart suddenly feels bigger on her chest, barely contained inside her body.

He crawls to Ellie's lap, interested in a colorful bracelet that rings like bells when Ellie shakes it, the clear sound nearly hypnotizing to the small child. He reaches one sticky hand to grab it, mouth open, eyes wide.

"He still likes you," Dina points out. The smile in her voice is evident.

"I mean, that's — that's really good. I think I'd cry a lot if he didn't." JJ tugs on her shirt after he grows bored of the toy, whining, and Ellie knows what he wants. "Um, spud, you got the wrong person."

Ellie handles him to Dina with practiced ease, and the shorter girl grins sarcastically at her as she exposes her chest enough to feed her son. 

"Nothing you haven't seen before, right?"

Ellie looks away out of respect anyway, staring straight at the wall in front of her. There are several pictures there, most of which she recognizes from their time in Jackson and in the farm. Pictures of her and Dina and Jesse smiling at the camera, and of Ellie with her hands buried deep into the soil, digging out potatoes, and even the one Dina took when they had chili with Tommy and Joel. 

"You kept the pictures."

"I almost didn't." 

Dina gives, gives, gives. Since they met, it seems like that's all she does. Always sparing a smile, a helping hand, peeling the jacket out of her shoulders if it meant someone else wouldn't be cold anymore, taking care of Ellie and her son and their house in ways that transcended human stamina. Ellie owes her so much. Apolozing first for their argument is a step in the right direction. Not a big one, but a step nevertheless.

"I'm sorry for fighting you the other day," she mumbles. Apologizing at all is a skill she picked up with Dina. 

"I'm sorry too. For saying all these stupid things. I didn't mean it."

"Okay."

"We good?"

"Yeah. Of course."

There's only the sound of JJ's quiet sighs and suckling filling the room. Ellie looks at them now, as respectfully as possible, wishing she take on her old role in their lives instead of watching them like a mere spectator — wanting to fill the space between Dina's back and the cushions, wrap her arms around the two people she loves the most in this entire world. JJ steadily grows quieter and Ellie's been in this situation way too many times before to know that he's sleeping. 

Dina stares at the child in her arms, then at Ellie, expecting that she takes on the offer to take him to bed.

"Can I?" 

Ellie asks anyway.

Holding her son in her arms after so long nearly causes her to break down in tears right there. This is all she wanted to do when she was alone and scared in that basement in Santa Barbara months ago, this is what she thought she would never be able to do again — but Dina is kind, so kind, and JJ wasn't scared of her and everything simply _worked_ — and she barely registers Dina giving her the directions to her room, where she's supposed to take JJ to for a hopefully undisturbed sleep. 

Her room smells of lavender and the scent throws her off, so achingly familiar it is. JJ's crib hasn't changed. It's the same one she built before he was born. He's grown so much since she last held him like this and Ellie finds herself not wanting to let him go, kissing his forehead softly, whispering, "Missed you, spud. Missed you so much."

JJ frowns, whines a little, and Ellie reluctantly sets him on soft, cloud-patterned covers. She stays there looking at him, hands tight on the rail of his crib, cursing herself for leaving her family and willingly depriving herself of all this. How could she be so _stupid_?

"Ellie."

Ellie took longer than she anticipated, so much that Dina came to check on her. For a while she just looks at her, from the doorframe, eyes deep and sad, mourning for all that could've been and that just was not. 

"Thought you got lost. You have the worst sense of direction."

She can recognize that tone in her voice, the one she uses when she's trying to look more cheery than she really is. Dina does that often, saying a joke when they're in deep emotional shit. She loves that about her, but right now Ellie can only muster a smile that doesn't reach the eyes. She's still looking at JJ, gently touching his tiny hand that curls around the fingers still left on her non-dominant hand. 

Dina rubs her back comfortingly, leaning her head on Ellie's shoulder, and Ellie just... sobs.

They don't say any more words.

They don't need to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you wonder why dina is so... passive in this fic i'd just like to say i initially planned for her to be noticeably bitter at ellie (i actually wrote a "prequel" to this story and that side of dina does show there because it aligned with what i had planned here) but along the way i just found it so out of character for her. it pained me to write dina that way. don't get me wrong, i do think she'd be conflicted and hold some degree of bitterness for what she did — i just don't think she'd direct that bitterness at ellie herself or cause her harm of any kind. it's not cohesive with my perception of her character and reading shannon's interview for fanbyte only solified that perception to me. 
> 
> that being said, i hope you enjoyed this chapter! may you and your family be safe in these weird weird weird times


	5. Chapter 5

She visits JJ almost every day. Mostly he babbles and tugs on her hair with a strenght quite surprising for a toddler his size, but every so often he forms actual words, words like _mama, apple, bug_. Ellie tries really hard to not think about how many milestones she's missed in this tiny part of his life. She wants to think about his laughter, and the glint in Dina's eyes when he calls her mama, and the way he said _Ewi_ when she picked him up from the floor one day.

Time passes in a lazy rhythm. She and Cat meet often. Sometimes it's Maria or Esther inviting themselves into her space. Even Tommy showed up one day, though that obviously didn't go as smoothly as he thought it would.

( _I didn't kill her. No, the lead was right. I just... didn't._ )

There are good days, days where Ellie talks to the horses and being around JJ makes her so happy she forgets about Tommy's anger and all the things he's said after she told him the truth. And then there are days like this, where Ellie touches the raised skin of her scar where it curves into her back and wonders if she should still be here, in this place, with these people. 

Many years earlier, she and Joel found a body in a bathtub. Ellie didn't need to be an expert in the outside world to know what had transpired. Such events happened in the Boston QZ — in distances close enough for Ellie to overhear conversations, to peek inside rooms, to find out in details what happened there to attract such a decent amount of people to shitty buildings like the orphanage she grew up in. She thought it was easy to let go like that. It certainly seemed easier than living. 

_Looks like they took the easy way out_ , she told Joel, who was staring at the remains of a person that once existed just like them. His gaze was distant. Deep in thought. _It ain't easy_ , he answered.

Some part of her wanted to survive when she crawled her way out of what surely would become a slow, drawn-out death in the woods. She was bleeding. Alone. But she was still breathing, still _alive_ , and maybe... no, not maybe, she _didn't_ want to die.

Ellie spent years throwing herself headfirst into danger without any regards to consequences and by the time she realized she didn't exactly have a family to come back to, she didn't care much about anything, not even whether or not she lived to see another day.

Or so she thought. 

She understands what Joel meant, now.

—

"You don't have to do this."

Dina touches her arm very, very gently, snapping Ellie's attention to her. It's Dina's birthday and there are a few people gathered in her living room and Ellie didn't go out on patrol back then as often as Dina used to, but she can assign names she read in patrol log books to most of the faces she just saw. Some people, on the other hand, are... new. 

Dina was smart to ask her to help with the food. Maybe she had noticed that nervous energy. Maybe everyone did and now they know she's more fucked up than they thought, and she should never attempt to have a normal life again. Maybe everyone did and it doesn't matter, because Dina invited Ellie to come to her house and that means she's trying to get her busy and to include her in this new life she's made and Ellie's profoundly lucky for that.

"I want to," Ellie says, simply, and the physical contact Dina initiated ceases. Ellie's spine stands straighter when they walk back into the living room, and she forces her face to be more inviting, less skittish, less Ellie. 

It works to an extent. Astrid offers her a drink and she's kinda funny when she puts in the effort. Bonnie lays a tabletop game on, well, the top of Dina's table, and they almost manage to kill an imaginary giant bird creature before it flies off and leaves some very expensive feathers behind. They would continue the game well into the night if it wasn't for JJ knocking some pieces to the floor with his grabby hands before Dina could stop him.

Life looks blissfully normal then. Dina thanks her friends for coming — happy birthday again, Dee — and cleans some of the mess after they leave. Ellie puts JJ to sleep and thanks the heavens he didn't feel like causing trouble anymore. 

"I had fun," Ellie says tentatively, when they're working together to shrink the pile of cups and plates on the sink. Ellie washes them, Dina dries them and puts them away. 

"Me too," Dina responds. There's a certain lift to her voice, like she's relieved or pleasantly surprised that Ellie initiated conversation. "Your rolls still suck, though. Three natural ones in a row? Really?" 

"Oh, fuck you."

Dina fumbles a little with storing the fancier plates she owns away on the lowest parts of the kitchen cupboard and Ellie's eyes widen as soon as it dawns on her that Dina had drank more tonight than she's seen her drink in over two years. 

"Dina, are you drunk?"

"A little, yeah. I think."

Ellie's seen her drink a lot more alcohol. Like, _a lot_. Dina had a way of going overboard in all the parties she dragged Ellie to when they were younger. When JJ came into the picture, however, she only drank when the hours in front of her were long enough to ensure that she wouldn't have any trouble feeding or keeping up with one very active, hungry toddler. 

"Wow. You're a lightweight now, mama."

Dina snorts the use of that one nickname Ellie made up for her back when she was still heavy with child. Ellie likes that playful side of hers. Likes that she's seeing it again. It's easy to pretend it's all okay and good between them, so easily they get along. Sometimes Ellie swears they've spoken for the last time, only to end up in this same position again and again. 

"Go to bed. I got this."

She feels elated. Like there's some part of herself that she got reacquainted with today, when she was with other people and had her fun. JJ is sleeping on his crib, Dina is tipsy, and it's so achingly familiar and unusual at once. She finishes doing the dishes and to her surprise, Dina didn't go to bed. She's lying down in the couch, chest slowly rising, still awake. A moment passes in silence before she assumes a sitting position and makes space for Ellie in the couch. This time there's no toys occupying all the space, no toddler to pay attention to, no friends around, nothing between them at all.

"You were avoiding me," Ellie finally puts out there a worry that's been nagging at the back of her mind the entire week.

Dina makes no attempt to convince Ellie that she wasn't avoiding her. She stares straight into her eyes. Nods. Ellie is rather puzzled by that. After all, Dina did go through the trouble of inviting her here and they're alone in her living room, so close their knees can touch if one of them moves an inch in the other's direction. 

"But you invited me here."

"I did."

"Why?"

When Dina speaks up again, it's a soft sound, a little unsure if it wants to be heard or not. "I guess I missed you."

Ellie's chest feels warm all of sudden. "I missed you too," Ellie confesses. Hopes it doesn't sound too desperate. It probably does, though. Ellie is terrible at hiding shit like that and Dina knows her more than anyone, which proves to be a pretty dangerous combo when she's trying to downplay something.

They sit there for a minute or two and allow the heaviness of that fact to settle. This longing is not one-sided. There's a desire to get closer, to quit this distancing after so much time spent away from each other, but making a conscious choice to be together is more complicated than it seems.

"He's getting used to having you around. JJ is old enough to remember things now, so if you wake up one day and decide you want nothing to do with this..."

She reaches for her hand and Dina noticeably tenses, then relaxes under her touch. She makes no attempt to pull away from it, or to return the gesture in kind.

"And I thought you were dead, Ellie. I gave you all I had and it still wasn't enough, so you ran off and got yourself killed. That's what I thought the entire time you were away. That it was my fault. You don't know what that did to me."

Ellie wants to scream.

"Not your fault. Never your fault, Dina, oh my fucking God," she holds her hand a little tighter, tracing her thumb over Dina's knuckles as if that could soothe all the pain she caused. "What I did to you—to us—please tell me how to make this right."

"It's never going to be the same. We can't forget what happened or pretend it didn't hurt."

Guilt prods at her heart. Shame, worry, regret.

"But we can try again. Make new memories. Build something stronger. If you're really up for that. And I mean really. You don't get to run off, you don't get to hide from people, from me. Not this time."

When Ellie takes too long to say something, Dina makes a remark about how sweaty her hands are and how gross that is. Ellie chuckles wetly, finding comfort in her old jokes and in the way she's seeing more and more of the Dina she knew, the one that made such jokes in inappropriate moments and did everything she could to make her happy. Sweaty or not, their hands are still clasped together like perfectly matching puzzle pieces, and Ellie goes on to tell her everything plagues her. Small things like _I can't stop shaking my leg_ and _I keep waking up at night_ , big things like _sometimes I don't really think I deserve to live._

Somewhere along the conversation, Dina's hand traced her arm before gently pulling her into a hug. Ellie can feel the hotness of her breath dancing on her ears when she speaks. "That's never scared me before, did it?"

Her head is on Dina's shoulder and she drinks deeply from her unique scent. If this is the last time she's able to do this, then Ellie wants to commit it to memory for as long as she lives. "There's only so much you can do," Ellie whispers back to her, just as quietly. 

"I don't think I need you to tell me that."

Her fingers gently brush the back of Ellie's neck, fingers seeping through the strands of her short hair, and Ellie can't do anything but sigh and lean more into her touch. This is all Ellie had to do. Not go on some suicide mission, not run away everytime Robin came by, just...

"Come to bed."

"With you?"

She mourns the loss of warmth when the hug comes to an end, but soon enough her face is being clasped in Dina's hands as she brushes her cheeks and boops her nose with her thumb, and Ellie gives her one exhausted, teary smile despite herself.

"With me."

—

They end up staying awake for a long time.

"We've known each other for almost a full decade, I know when you're jealous. Also, you were staring at us. Straight up glaring."

"I wasn't..." 

Ellie stops midsentence. There's no use in denying.

"You have nothing to worry about. You and Cat, though... maybe I should be worried."

"No."

"You have history."

"Nope, just nope. Not going there."

Dina seems pleased by her reaction, smiling sweetly, smug. "Always thought she wasn't right for you."

Ellie's heart was beating in tandrum with her brain on that bonfire night years ago, saying _kiss her, kiss her, kiss her_. It's saying the same thing now. Ellie thinks that maybe Dina was staring down at her lips, but she might just have imagined it. The moment passes just as quick as it came anyway, with Dina opening her mouth so wide when she yawns that it seems to almost snap her jaw before she closes her eyes and snuggles close to her. 

A few minutes pass and she doesn't seem to move an inch. Ellie would've noticed it if she did. It's easy to focus on the steady rhythm of her breathing and on the heartbeats she can count one by one, the quietness of the town at this hour of the night wrapping around them like a blanket. The thought of all this disappearing once morning comes upon them hits her suddenly and chills her to the bone. 

"I don't want to be alone," she confesses, not unlike the same girl that told a boy her age about her biggest fear all these years ago. 

She thinks Dina fell asleep, but then she's held tighter than before, all tension leaving under the gentle touch of her fingers running through her auburn locks just like before, until she gives in to sleep.

—

_Mica_

_Half-Elf Druid_

_Str: 10_

_Dex: 13_

_Con: 14_

_Int: 12_

_Wis: 15_

_Cha: 8_

_Equipment: Leather Armor, ~~Wooden Bow~~ (need fix), Iron Dagger_

_Inventory: Wildberries x8, Incense x2_

_[Doodle of Dina peacefully asleep on the margins.]_

_I should try to sleep again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the d&d stuff is all inspired by critical role episodes and ashley's terribly unlucky rolls. check that show out if you haven't!


	6. Chapter 6

She thought it would be easy to sneak out for a few minutes and get a change of clothes before the town woke up, but Dina is looking at her from the bedroom door, hair disheveled and sleep clinging to her eyes, silently saying don't leave, don't leave, and in that split moment Ellie closes some ot the distance between them, explains herself, _I'm not leaving, I was just_ — 

Ellie ends up sleeping over that night too, and then the next. She takes the spare bedroom when she remembers that there are suitable places to sleep and the couch or a dining chair are anything but that. Sometimes Dina stays up with her when she can't sleep, even if just for a few minutes. 

"You looked lonely all on your own here," Dina murmurs as she pushes a warm mug of something into her hands, and what can Ellie do but accept this care, this love? 

There's no way she can convince Dina to sleep or to do anything she doesn't have her heart in, so she makes space for her in the small porch, admiring how the warm yellow light coming from the living room illuminates a side of her face, leaving the other obscured in the darkness of a chilling night. Ellie hurriedly gulps down the rest of the tea to capture this moment before it's gone, dropping her hand to the pen and notebook she hasn't touched for the entire length of a night. 

"Can I draw you?" 

— 

Dina does this thing where she leads younger patrol teams into routes she knows like the back of her hand, and Ellie feels her skin starting to ache as she watches her set out of Jackson and into familiar fields and mountains. 

Esther must be the first to notice there's something wrong, leading her away from Liam, who's obliviously chatting about the Savage Starlight comic Ellie lent him about a day earlier. 

She's already far too gone by the time they get to a quieter place.

— 

"You can start with telling me how was your day if that's any better." 

Ellie holds back saying that she's doing just fine and that there's nothing to worry about because clearly there is something wrong if she's here, in the living room of someone in town that's known to work out issues like hers; instead, she says easy, meaningless things, things that involve stable work, and the new foal that was born last week, and Japan, wringing her hands together so forcefully to the point the warmth from the friction becomes a bother. 

"Japan?" 

"Dina's horse. She likes him a lot, so I give him extra treats and stuff like that." 

Jackson is a town where no one is able to hide things such as relationships and relationship troubles and whatever is in between. No one can nitpick who sees what. This person knows who Dina is even if vaguely, including her long, recently-gotten-complicated relationship with Ellie. She makes one simple question about how they're getting along and something in Ellie's expression sours immediately. 

"You don't have to answer any question you don't want to answer," the older woman reminds her. 

"No, it's just weird. Talking to someone like that. It's really weird." _I don't like it_ , Ellie wants to say, but that would be ungrateful. 

Maria comes to check on her later that day, asking how was it. Well, it sucked. All of it. She doesn't feel any of the relief Maria told her she'd feel. 

"You said it would help," Ellie murmurs, a little betrayed. 

"It takes time." 

"I don't have time." 

"You're twenty—" 

" _Twenty-one_ —" 

"—Time is all you got." 

Amidst the uncomfortable silence that follows this altercation, a heavy sigh comes from Maria, half-frustration and half-exasperation at this young girl who's less reasonable than the child she raises with her girlfriend. 

"Listen, just keep talking to her, alright? We don't know how to help and this thing..." She pauses for a second before continuing. "It's taken over Tommy. Don't let it happen to you too." 

Ellie considers her words carefully. 

"I'll try." 

It's all Maria needs to hear. 

— 

_Dreamt of Santa Barbara again. She was drowning me, and I could hear Joel. I told Dina about it and she said that wasn't me. But that was me. That is still me. I just don't want to lose myself like that again._

— 

Ellie can't cook to save her life and Dina can get shit done a lot quicker without having to worry about a toddler are both facts that they learned very early on their days as a family. Dina works on lunch, Ellie keeps JJ busy, and slowly like that they take on old routines. 

"Looks good," Ellie looks over Dina's shoulder to see what she's cooking, slightly bouncing JJ on her arms. 

Dina's answer is what she expects it to be. She's always enjoyed praising Dina for whatever reason because of how she reacts to it — she smiles shyly, tucks her hair behind her ear, and out of habit Ellie wants to touch her. She wants to put an arm around her waist to bring her closer and kiss her neck in the spot she loves because Ellie's never forgotten it, but it's not the moment to do such things. It doesn't matter. JJ would've ruined the moment anyway. 

"Hey, let mama do her thing," Ellie scolds him, untangling his hand from Dina's shirt. "Guess we'll go back to watching cartoons. We're busy people, you know?" 

And they do. Between entertaining JJ and having her attention caught by the bright colors on screen, Ellie finds it easy to let minutes or hours pass by her. She loves spending time with him. Loves to hear Dina humming a song under her breath. It feels like home. 

"El?" 

She turns her head to look at Dina, noticing the tomato sauce in her shirt and the way her hair is down and frizzy, longer than Ellie's ever seen it. 

"Happy you're here." 

Dina does this sometimes, drops things that mean the world to Ellie like she's talking about the weather outside. It leaves Ellie fumbling with her words. 

"I'm—happy I'm here too." 

Dina smiles, and she smiles back, and JJ is blissfully unaware of anything other than the bottle Ellie uses to feed him. 

— 

She isn't really hungry now, if ever, but Dina puts so much effort into meals that Ellie ends up taking a decent bite of the food presented to her. It's only halfway through lunch that Ellie realizes this is a recipe Dina picked up from Robin. Her favorite. 

— 

Ellie isn't the only one to wake up in the middle of the night, trembling from head to toe with the remains of nightmares nagging on the back of her head. It's the same for Dina. Though less frequent, they're not any better than Ellie's own nightmares. 

"Talk to me about something. Anything." 

Ellie knows which bad dream she had just by the way Dina leans her head on her chest and searches for her hands to grip them tight. With her free hand, Ellie begins to show her all the sketches she's drawn that day. 

"I drew the flowers you keep outside and I'm, uh, still working on it. It'll look better in a painting, I think." 

Dina cuddles closer to her, silently encouraging her to talk. The sweat on her forehead brushes against Ellie's temple. 

"And this one's... a third of a cat. I saw a cat around here the other day, and I know you like cats, so. I'm not really good at drawing them, but—" 

Dina chuckles, a wet, sad sound. 

"If I can catch it taking a nap in just the right angle, it can't be too hard." 

"Iza." 

"What?" 

"The cat. That's her name. She steals my food sometimes. Only because I let her, though." 

"Oh. Maybe you could bring her in one of these days. It would make it easier for me." 

Dina notes with no small amount of pride that Ellie's drawn Joel recently — with no hidden eyes, no obscurity of any kind. There's a sketch of JJ chewing on Ollie's ear, many of the landscape found the quieter area of the town, and a lot of sketches picturing the horses Ellie sees on a daily basis. The drawings and Ellie's voice start to blur together and she focuses more on the feel of it all — her touch, her voice — until one sketch in particular catches her attention. 

"This one," Dina points it out with her finger. "Is that me?" 

There's no need to ask. The shoulder scar is unmistakable and the perspective in which it was drawn in leaves no doubt that Ellie drew it from memory. The sketch in its entirety is visually provocative enough for Dina to ask something that's been bouncing around the edges of her mind for quite a while. 

"Do you still think of me like that?" 

Dina is staring at her with some kind of attention that makes Ellie's blood run hot under her veins, burning like fire, and the hold Dina has on her hand feels different all of sudden. 

"Will you be mad at me if I say I do?" Ellie confesses, avoiding her gaze. 

"Not at all." 

Ellie wants more and she can tell Dina does, too. 

It's too fast. 

They can't. 

The subject is dropped there, to be picked up sometime later but not now. This is all for today and probably for a long time — cuddles, knees touching, conversation bouncing back and forth. 

She's okay with that. 

— 

_Took JJ to the stables. He loved all of it. Dina likes to say he's a mini me but I see so much of her in him, especi_

"Shit. I need a new pencil." 

— 

The panic doesn't settle in immediately. It's slow and drawn-out, starting with a certain numbness to her limbs and slower reactions until it evolves into a full-blown effort to breathe, her nails digging into her palm and drawing blood. 

If she makes any sound then she'll be found, and if she is found then she'll die within minutes. _I'm in Jackson_ , Ellie tells herself, _not Seattle_. Seattle wasn't this warm and comfortable, Seattle didn't sound this busy, Jackson, not Seattle, but it's like she's there again, elbows and knees bruised, wet grass tickling her nose. 

Dina touches her and she recoils, screams, she shouldn't have screamed, _they're going to find her, they're going to_ — "The dog," Ellie croaks out. "We should leave. We should—" 

"Listen to me." Dina learned quickly that touching her isn't the ideal course of action right now, so she places both her hands on the arms of the chair Ellie's sitting at. "We're safe. It's not going to hurt us." 

Ellie looks back at her, panicked, her gaze so different from the one Dina saw just a few minutes earlier. But she's listening. That's good. 

"I'm going to touch you now, okay?" 

Ellie nods. Dina uncurls her hands. 

"Deep breaths." 

Her first intake of air is choked-up. The second almost doesn't make it to her lungs. The dog barks again outside and she whimpers, returning to step one and following Dina's instructions until she starts regaining full control of her body. Blurs become clearer, sounds more recognizable, and Ellie feels hot tears trailing down her cheeks. 

Dina holds her, relieved that she stopped this from getting too bad. She keeps saying things like you're safe and the word babe slips in here and there somewhere out of habit. Ellie wants this comfort, wants to be touched, and she hates herself for being given what she wants, for having these bad panic attacks when she should be nothing but happy, and mostly she hates that it happened after a streak of good, nearly perfect days. 

"I feel like I'm not getting anywhere with all this shit that I'm doing. It's not helping." 

Dina cups her cheek, says, "Remember that story I told you?" 

Dina tells her a lot of stories. She can't recall one that would fit this situation. 

"A guy named Elijah sits under a juniper tree," she prompts, then goes on when Ellie shows no sign of recognition. "He's really, really tired, and and an angel is sent to him. The angel tells him to eat and rest and he does exactly that, but then he wakes up and he's still not ready to keep going. Do you remember what happens after?" 

"The angel makes him eat and rest again," Ellie answers, recalling this particular story after Dina gave more details about it. 

"Right. He had to eat and rest many times before he regained his strenght and moved on," she squeezes Ellie's knee with her left hand. "You feel like you're in the same place, doing the same things over and over again and getting absolutely nowhere, but this is all part of, I don't know, the journey?" 

"Wow." 

Dina rolls her eyes at her. "I'm serious." 

"No, that was—that was actually pretty good."

Ellie leans her head on the hand that cups her cheek. Closes her eyes. She's exhausted.

— 

She didn't count on Tommy visiting Joel's gravestone in the same day and time as her. Ellie's not in the mood to talk, especially not to him, even though he's apologized for all the shit he's said. 

"I was wrong about everything," he mumbles. Ellie's ears barely catch the sound. "He would never blame you." 

Ellie's answer is short. 

"I know." 

— 

Visiting the farm again is a strange experience. The place is, of course, nearly empty, save for that one room where some of her stuff was left. Ellie doesn't linger around much. She plays some chords on Joel's guitar for a bit — mourns the loss of this skill she used to have — and then she leaves, promising herself to bring it back with her next time. 

When Ellie lived in Boston, she wanted to see the world. She planned trips to beaches and faraway countries and wondered what laid beyond those heavily guarded walls, just waiting to be found. By now she's certainly seen more than enough to quench the thirst for the unknown, so much that she spent but a few hours outside Jackson and rushed back to the family that she knows is waiting for her. 

— 

"JJ picked all these apples?" 

Ellie plays along with it, enjoying how happy JJ looks with all the attention he's getting. 

"He really did!" 

"Yeah? bet he needed some help." 

"Nope. All by himself. And he also got," She rummages the sack she's carrying for this giant jar of honey she got on the market. "This." 

The kiss Ellie receives on her cheek feels like an overcompensation for the rather simple gift, but she's not complaining. 

— 

"Do you know what we're going to do with all this stuff?" 

Ellie's taken to sleeping over on Dina's spare bedroom for quite some time, and Dina just brings up one day that maybe she should stay there instead of getting a change of clothes from her place every once in a while. Ellie didn't refuse to. 

They are boxes of things that belonged to Joel and that she's never touched, or things that belong to her and that she didn't bother unpacking, and at this point all their conversation has faded and there's only this twinge of pain deep inside Ellie's chest. 

She stares into empty space, and Dina brings her back. 

"You here with me?" 

"Yeah. Yeah, sorry." 

Ellie searches for her hand and Dina takes it. She leans heavily against her, thinking about how Dina never got to really talk to Joel, and about all the things that could've been and that just aren't. 

"I think we should keep this," Dina comments, her eyes set her on notebook Joel wrote some songs on and that Ellie's been avoiding for a while. "For when you teach Jay how to play guitar." 

Ellie loves her for that. For constantly reminding her of a future within reach, for dragging her out of the mud and offering her a life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you might've noticed that i changed the tags. i wrote a huge part of pure smut before i realized it did not quite fit in this story. sorry. it'll show up somewhere else for sure, so stay tuned. ;) also, have you guys read that theory that says ellie's met up with dina before the ending? it's pretty convincing.
> 
> thank you for reading and i hope you liked this chapter and this story in general. all of it turned out to be drastically different from what i had in mind when i started. it was a struggle (especially because i usually stick to oneshots), but you guys really helped with the kind words and the encouragement. really, thank you. 
> 
> stay safe 💟


End file.
